9500 Pro Problems.... Need Help Please

[Kente]

I just got my 9500 Pro (128 meg) in the mail a few days ago. After following the step by step installation instructions I'm having constant system lockups and have been trying to solve this problem for a few hours now.

Here are my system specs (Im going to be upgrading the board and processor soon):

Dell Pentium III 700
128 MB SDRAM
Windows 98 SE
Power Supply = I'm assuming its 300 Watts?
I have one hard drive and cd rom installed

This might be kind of long, so bear with me here.... Before installing the card I uninstalled my previous drivers for my rage 128 pro card (agp). I then rebooted, let it complete the driver removal, and then i shutdown in order to install my new card. I then put in my 9500 and connected the power supply extension exactly how they have is specified in the manual. I then turned on my computer, and let it go through the normal hardware detection sequence. I let windows add default pci video driver, detect monitor, etc.... I then rebooted and ran the catalyst cd.

Heres where it started getting weird- the system would almost lock up as soon as my desktop would load. I then went to my system properties by rebooting in safe mode and found that for some reason I had two duplicate cd roms installed in my device manager settings. I also had two primary 9500 and two secondary 9500 cards installed (or so it said) and a rage fury card. Then i checked under monitors and i had 3 default monitors and 2 plug n play monitors. I then removed one of the primary and one of the secondary 9500 listings and the rage fury maxx lising. I also removed 2 of the 3 default monitor listings and one of the plug and play listings.

Heres what it has listed now (going off of memory here):

CDROM Lite 48x

Radeon 9500 Series Card Primary
Radeon 9500 Series Card Secondary

Plug N play Monitor
Default Monitor

If I try removing the default monitor and pci secondary card windows automatically redetects them so I'm assuming they belong there. But still, I have no luck, the system still locks up a few seconds after loading my desktop. I manage to get into my system configuration and disable the ati control panel and all other ati progs that load at startup. I can get on the web now, at least for a short amount of time and surf around. I get lockups occassionally, and a definite lockup when trying to get into outlook but its a lot smoother than before. I still cannot resize my desktop either, its stuck to 640x480 and when i try resizing it goes to a black screen and freezes until i reboot.

Another thing I forgot to mention, after going through many different things, I finally d/l the latest drivers for the card from the ati site but it still locks up.

I'm about to the point where I want to uninstall the card and go back with my 128.... i just hope i can uninstall all the 9500 drivers w/o getting a lockup. My system meets the requirements for the card.... pentium 3, 128 ram, power supply? (not sure about this one but i wouldnt have figured that it's the prob), and having windows 98 SE shouldnt be an issue as ive read here before.

Maybe all of my previous video card drivers didnt get uninstalled completely?? I'm just throwing a shot in the dark here, I'm totally lost. Sorry the post was so long, but any help would be appreciated greatly.

 

[Killrose]

First: Remove Cat. Drivers. When asked to restart, don't.
Second: Remove Cat. Control Panel. When asked to restart, don't.
Third: Get rid of the folder:"Ati" in your C:/ drive.
Fourth: Go to: C:/Windows/inf/other and remove any inf. file in there that starts with Ati.
Fifth: Go to: Start/Run and type: regedit, then Ok

Six: Go to folder:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/software, and remove any folders there that say "Ati Tecnologies" and "Ati Technologies inc" and then close the "software" folder.
Seven: Open up the "system" folder just below the one labled "software" which you just backed out of. And now open up the one labled "Current Control Set", then the folder labled "Services" then "Class" and locate the folder that say's "Display", open it up and delete all keys with-in that folder (Do NOT delete the folder that say's Display, only the sub-folders). The sub-folders will start with "0000" and if you see more than one folder,ie, "0000" and "0001" then that is why you're having problems.
Eight: close out of the registry folder and as you do press "F5" key to refresh (at least thats the way I was taught).
Nine: Close the Registry and now you can re-boot. But as you are re-booting press and hold "F8" Key at Bios screen to boot into "Safe Mode". Once in Safe Mode, open up Device Manager and remove all Display Adaptors in the list, and all the Monitors to.
Now re-boot.

Ten: Once into windows, you want to change the display type to: Standard PCI Adaptor (VGA) and restart. Don't worry if the machine hangs up in the bios and say's something like "Windows is restarting", if it hangs, Reset switch it, and though it will go thru the whole Safe Mode process, just select "Restart" once it finally gets done with Safe Mode.

Now, once you are back into Win98, you can load the Cat. drivers, restarting, then load the Cat. Control Panel drivers.

That process should ensure you are starting from scratch with your drivers, and any problems you now run into are most likely due to other issues.

 

[Kente]

Thanks for the help Kill, but still no luck... after getting back from the lab I tried a similar method as you described that was posted on guru3d. It would still lockup every now and then, and playing any game was basically hopeless, as in there was an immediate lockup. Another thing is that the card wouldnt pass the ati diagnostics tests. Finally I've given up, I believe there must be some issue involving my motherboard. This seems to be a common problem.... I guess i'm going to send it back and try out a geforce 4:/

 

[Killrose]

I'd say you have a deffective card. I'm sure they are'nt ment to run that way normally. LOL.
Anyone else you know that would love to see how well that thing would run in their box? That would deffinately point a finger of defect at it.

 

[Kente]

Hmmm.... good idea. Maybe Ill let my roomie try it out and watch as he suffers numerous lock-ups. Actually thats probably a bad idea. He can't even play a game of counterstrike without screaming at his computer and swearing to everyone and their mother.... His head would explode if he had to deal with what I just went through.

 

[ChuaChua]

what about your power supply??
i only have a 250W PSU. no problems. i think.


i didnt connect it the way the manual told.
i connected the plug to the cord that runs to my cd burner instead.

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: Kente
Hmmm.... good idea. Maybe Ill let my roomie try it out and watch as he suffers numerous lock-ups. Actually thats probably a bad idea. He can't even play a game of counterstrike without screaming at his computer and swearing to everyone and their mother.... His head would explode if he had to deal with what I just went through.

Send him out for a beer run and quickly install it and check it out your self.

 

[Auric]

Look at the sticker on the PSU, check on Dell's site or contact them about the specs. While the claimed wattage rating of the PSU is not critical, it does of course require enough power and yours may just not be providing enough. It could be a real ah heck because they use proprietary connectors and such which make swaps unpractical unless they can provide one but it would probably be prohibitively expensive. Why did you fork out for a 9500P for such a machine anyway? It is unbalanced and may not perform significantly better than a much cheaper 8500/9100 which also do not require as much power.

 

[norder69]

Err ... I don't even know where to begin ...

1) your system it bloody old. Probably running at 2X AGP or even 1X AGP ... 9500 Pro is at 8X, so you're no where close to using this card to it's potential at all ... this is the wrong card for your system.

2) Radeon 9500 Series Card Primary
Radeon 9500 Series Card Secondary

- is correct. I am assuming that it's a ATI 9500 Pro that you have. It can display 2 monitor remember? Dual head ...

3) you'll probably need to flash your BIOS (which is basically impossible because Dell seldom release BIOS upgrades). Your old mobo is probably having problem detecting your card correctly (even though Win98 seems to have done a good job).

Basically, the bottom line is : Wrong system for this video card!

 

[frustrated2]

You should just send this video card to me